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Nasb-and-the-Nawasib

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Al-Mahdī rewarded him with seventy thousand dirhams, which prompted Marwān

to say the following:

بسبعين ألفا راشني من حبائه

وما نالهافي الناس من شاعر قبلي

He gave me seventy thousand as a gift from him. And no one before him

attained such a huge gift. 1

Likewise he said the following in another poem referring to difference between

the Alawids and the Abbasids:

هل تطمسون من السماء نجومها

أم تدفعون مقالة عن ربكم

شهدت من النفال أخر أية

فذروا السود خوادرا في غيلها

بأكفكم أم تسترون هاللها

جبريل بلغها النبي فقالها

بتراثهم فأردتم أبطالها

ل تولغن دمائكم أشبالها

Will you wipe out the skies of the heaven with your hands, or will you

cover its moon?

Will you reject a message from your lord, which Jibrīl brought to Nabī

H and thus he conveyed it?

The last verse of al-Anfāl has testified to their inheritance and you want

to discard it.

So leave the lions concealed in their dens. Do not give their cubs your

blood to drink. 2

Upon this he was rewarded with a hundred thousand. It is said that he was the

first poet who was given a hundred thousand in the Abbasid era. 3

1 Dīwān Marwān ibn Abī Ḥafṣah p. 88.

2 Ibid. p. 77.

3 Tārīkh Baghdād 13/145; Wafayāt al-Aʿyān 5/253.

385

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